Yesterday, Lisa outlined the Weight Watchers plan, and today I’m going to outline the South Beach Diet for you. Now to be honest, I’ve never used the South Beach plan to lose weight. I’m a half-assed Weight Watchers girl. But Weight Watchers is what I know, what I’m comfortable with, it’s ingrained into my brain. I almost don’t have to calculate points anymore because I can pretty accurately guesstimate them. With that being said, after researching the South Beach diet, and seeing other people have success with it, I’m pretty impressed.
I am not one for fad diets. I do not believe you should cut anything completely out of your diet. Not carbs, not fat, not sugar. You need all of that stuff, and with moderation you can have it. Knowing how to incorporate all of that stuff into your diet is the key to successfully losing weight AND keeping it off.
So here are the Basics of South Beach (taken straight from their site and just condensed into a quick overview):
- The South Beach Diet is a food lovers diet. You love food, right? That’s what got you into this mess, right? Well now, you can love food and lose weight. It’s a way of life. It’s about learning to eat right – a way you can eat for the rest of your life.
- The South Beach Diet was doctor-designed by leading preventive cardiologist Arthur Agatston with the goal of helping people improve their health — and lose weight doing it. Eating the array of foods emphasized on the South Beach Diet — whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, low-fat dairy products, and healthy fats — can reduce your risk of developing heart disease, stroke, prediabetes, and diabetes.
- The diet is broken down into 3 phases. Phase 1 like boot camp. It probably sucks, but it’s necessary to reset your body and get rid of all the bad cravings. Basically you eliminate sugar and refined starches (like white bread, mac n cheese, cookies), but only for 2 weeks. After that, you hit Phase 2 and you slowly start reintroducing healthy carbs like whole-grain bread and brown rice, and natural sugars back into your diet. Phase 3 is a maintenance phase – basically how you’re going to eat for the rest of your life to maintain your bitchin’ new bod You’ll get to eat all the food you want, but you have to retain control over portion sizes and indulgences.
- Now what do you get to eat? South Beach is coined as a food lovers diet. If you join their online program, you can customize weekly meal plans to fit your needs and schedule. You can reead more about what you might eat here.
- The South Beach diet does not require you to count anything. Not calories, carbs, or fat. The plan teaches you how to choose the most nutritious foods and by learning this it’s not necessary to count. The plan emphasizes that calorie counting doesn’t work if you’re choosing the wrong foods.
- Because the plan focuses on healthy, nutritious foods, you’ll probably be in the kitchen alot! But that’s not a bad thing. In order to live healthy, you need to learn how to prepare meals. Your whole family will benefit! Like Weight Watchers, South Beach also has a line of convenience foods, called South Beach Living, available at your local grocery store. Items like frozen meals, breakfast bars, snacks, dressings, and cookies.
- The South Beach diet website offers books, fitness DVDs, and food items. You can either use the South Beach Diet book to learn about the plan, or you can join South Beach Diet’s online community for $5 a week. (Just an FYI, WW online is $16.95 a month)
So go forth and investigate. Decide what plan is best for you. But keep in mind, we’ll also be featuring a couple of more weight loss plans this week: calorie counting and Eat Right for Your Type. Stick around and you’ll learn something! I promise.
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Thirty-nine year-old wife and mom to BJ (11) and Mia (7). I’m the editor at the Sisterhood, and I really love to run (really), read, cook amazing things, and photography is my fledging passion. My motivation is motivating other people to realize they can do this whole weight-loss and exercise thing. I’m living proof!